Sleepwalker
by adele4
Summary: Ficlets and drabbles, mostly various pairings, some gen. Twenty-seven: Thief King/Ryou Bakura. The host doesn't understand why, with his current knowledge, he'd want to help the dark god.
1. Sleepwalker

_Short fics, probably from 100-500 words; minus Ryou-fic that's exactly 100, 150, or 200 words long, because these are collected in "Halbdunkel". All feedback is appreciated, as usual.  
_

_Disclaimer__: I don't own yuugiou._

* * *

Sleepwalker

* * *

Small scratches on his life, minor concussions; the change was subtle and not unpleasant, and it would have been dishonest to pretend he fought it very hard.

Like everyone, he usually took his dreams for reality while he was sleeping; but he used to always _know_ when he was awake. The clear distinction vanished. His dreams were real and vivid like never, and he always remembered all of them. His perception, even more his memory, of real day-to-day life was weak.

Life had become unreal and game-like, and bare of any true danger, bare of any real truth; he could take a time-out whenever he wanted to, and he abused it, though he tried not to do so too hard. But it was pleasant to be able to lean back, close his eyes, and disappear into his own mind, in slumber. There would be no repercussions.

He rarely heard the voice these days, and when he did, he knew why: as soft and coaxing as it seemed to sound, there was always an underlying malice in the tone, that left him shaken, awake!...

But the feeling never subsisted. It was difficult to fix his thoughts on anything. He tried writing: letters to Amane, but he knew she wasn't there, now, or he would hear or see her, and the realisation wasn't really painful. Diary-like entries, but that was an embarrassing thing to do. Scenarios for his role-playing games, full worlds, with their geography and their history, and that was the only thing that worked. It helped fixing his mind on _something_, helped him forget why he wanted to do so in the first place.

He spent whole nights writing, then game-building. He dreamt of Egypt. Things blurred together. Time ran faster, somehow, in a pleasant swirl. Building the game slowed it down.

* * *

_Current content:_

1. Sleepwalker, Ryou

2. Too Much Thinking, Yuugi/Kaiba

3. Treachery, Yami Bakura/Rishid

4. Longing, Yami/Yuugi

5. Dependency, Ryou/Malik

6. Frozen, Kisara/High Priest Seto

7. Thrift, Jounouchi/Kaiba

8. Letzter Atem, Mahado, Yami, Yuugi

9. Creampuffs, Malik/Ryou/Yami Bakura

10. Guilt, Rishid/Malik

11. Otherworld, Kaiba/Kisara

12. Worship, Thief King Bakura/Yami Malik

13. Zwischenwelt, Mana/Amane

14. Mercy, Akunadin, all 3 Bakurae

15. Dormant, Mahado/Malik

16. Haunted House, Jounouchi, Kaiba, Ryou

17. Of Knights and Dragons, Mokuba, Kisara

18. Grieving, Anzu/Yami & Yuugi/Anzu (one-sided)

19. Wordless, Shizuka/Kisara

20. Reconciling Divergences, Malik, Jounouchi

21. Substance, Seto, Mokuba

22. Magical Girl, Mana, Ryou

23. Adieu, Mahado, Isis

24. Love You Like the Moonlight But Dream of the Sun, Kaiba/Kisara

25. Dreams of Silver, Ryou/Thief King Bakura

26. Blessed, Priest Seto/Mahado

27. Precious as Gems and Ashes, Ryou/Thief King Bakura


	2. Too Much Thinking

_Seto/Yuugi, post-series._

* * *

Too Much Thinking

* * *

The other Yugi, he had been able to understand: he had been duelling and fighting and doing anything to crush his adversary completely, yet been too proud not to accept another rematch.

He had been straightforward and ruthless and honest, and comprehendible.

But _he_ was!...

This gentle smile that had to be hiding something other than an attempt to tempt him into kissing him again, this irrational willingness to sacrifice himself and all his chances to win when he deemed it right. This way he had of looking up at him, unsure and unafraid, accepting and soft and gentle, as if he didn't know that he needed him, and even though he, too, had won all the duels they had played. As if the former wasn't given and the latter not important.

So, after a moment of thought, Kaiba decided that Yugi simply had to be even more arrogant than his other self, and, reassured, leaned down and let the smaller duellist pull him into a bruising kiss.


	3. Treachery

_Yami Bakura/Rishid  
_

* * *

Treachery

* * *

He can feel that he is himself being used: used for an incomplete, secret attempt to reach out that just ends before the cursed gold again, for hollow revolt, and accomplishment of shameful desire for air and life and love beyond the only ones that should matter; and somehow, sin is easier when committed all the way, and this is surreal and futureless.

But the spirit can _feel_ that he is failing: the man could break under his hands and yet not betray Malik.

So he takes revenge in small biting words as he allows the other nothing but few kisses: Bakura's body is fragile and doesn't need this exhaustion, and the way the one most loyal tomb keeper will flinch at the mere word "treachery" is more enjoyable than any physical experience can be.


	4. Longing

_Yami Yuugi/Yuugi; I use "aibou", because "partner" just isn't the same, but I translated "other me".__  
_

* * *

Longing

* * *

Faint moonlight falls into the room through the creak between the two halves of the curtains, and washes over Yuugi's face and wakes him up, gently. Yuugi's eyes blink open, tiredly, and then he smiles faintly when he sees him, hanging in the air right next to the bed.

He manages to smile back, and they are silent for a while. He feels his transparent body tremble all over, so violently it would be impossible to believe in his own incorporeity if he didn't know, thanks to Yuugi, what being alive really is.

It's one of these long nights when he almost wishes for imminent danger to take their mind off other things. He is absolutely certain, despite his memory-loss, that there have never, in this life or the last, been other moments as sweet and as painful.

"I love you," he says, needs to say.

They know each other, understand each other so well that they would need no words: but in the silence, their insurmountable distance even as they're so close becomes so unbearable, the impossibility to tell each other what they both already know through simply reassuring touches, brushes of their hands, warm hugs, furtive kisses, hurts so much (almost physically, he thinks, but of course it doesn't), they have to find a way to communicate, to comfort, and for this they have nothing but words. Sometimes he's wondered if that's the reason why Yuugi has given him so much: offered him his own memories, his body, his help in his quest, because of the need to promise and give more and more – but Yuugi is always this generous, and not only to him, and the realisation makes him arch even more.

Three millennia too early he was born, but if it had been different, and without whatever tragedy lead to his early death in the past, he would never have met Yuugi, and this is worth everything.

"I love you too, other me," Yuugi answers, warmly, wide eyes staring up at him unblinkingly and, though they've told each other so often, the pain recedes for a moment.

"Aibou," he can only answer, softly.

Yuugi smiles, and it hurts, he's so close and so out of reach; he wants to embrace him so badly, if only for a moment, to feel his warmth.

But he can do nothing but see and hear, until, while the moonlight deserts the room again, Yuugi's eyes slowly fall closed again, and his regular breathing tells him he's fallen asleep. Only then does he retreat back to the puzzle.


	5. Dependency

_Post-series Ryou/Malik__, implied past Ryou/Yami Bakura._

* * *

Dependency

* * *

Possibly, there was an explanation, a logical one. Parts of the brain that could be stimulated directly – a bit of magic, too, of course, but not as much as one would think. He would try to find out as soon as he could. He was interested in everything modern: he had sworn to himself that whatever he would do with his life, now that he was free, it would have nothing to do with Ancient Egypt, nothing with history, nothing with old legends, ...

Of course, here, the past was catching up with him anyway. Ryou Bakura, lying next to him, eyes closed, lips opened and trembling, a small moan rising to them, as Malik's mind grazed his own, grew stronger and stronger.

But this, he couldn't escape. Didn't want to, either, not really: he loved Ryou. But this wasn't how he would have chosen things to go. This was frightening because it wasn't unpleasant, this reminder of the power he'd held with the millennium rod, which he still held over this mind, and was allowed to use...

Only, he couldn't refuse Ryou. He owed him still. He had put his life at stake twice, and the dark entity that had been born of him had taken it once. If this was what he wanted, then he wouldn't deny him.

Ryou, eager to share, to _give_, would allow him to touch him, to take him, anything, would obey his orders, but at times his body was passive as a corpse and he could not: pushed, instead, against his mind, held only a hand over Ryou's chest to feel him shudder, the reaction anything but ghostlike and in mind only.

"I'm sorry," Ryou still said sometimes, after, when they were lying next to each other, sweaty, on the double bed. "You must think I'm such a freak..."

"No." This was worse than all the rest. "I don't. It's fine."

He gently caressed Ryou's brow, and the other quickly moved to hug him, hold him close with all his strength, terrified, Malik knew and hugged him back, by the knowledge that he could leave.


	6. Frozen

_Kisara/Priest Seto drabble, originally written for the livejournal community 10 whores._

* * *

Frozen

* * *

She traces his name in sand.

She's alone, surrounded by desert; if anyone saw her, he would believe her a conjurer, drawing large, foreign signs on the ground, circling them again and again, murmuring softly.

And he would not be wrong, for she's sacrificing strength and time to repeat, fix and multiply this one name, to recreate the one memory that gives her hope.

She lives – and dies – for a mirage-love before it can be eroded by reality; she goes without regret, rewarded by the love in his eyes, certain that this is how he will remember her.


	7. Thrift

_Jounouchi/Kaiba, snippet.  
_

* * *

Thrift

* * *

Jounouchi cursed as he hit the floor. _Damn_ Kaiba and his combat training. He'd won fights against that kind of people before!

He tiredly leant against the wall, and took the time to catch his breath, before he looked up at the other boy, who was standing with his arms crossed only about a meter and a half away. It wasn't just that he'd lost. He could accept being beaten in something, there were no hard feeling if he lost a fair match; it was the way Kaiba looked so annoyingly calm and casual about it.

"Do you enjoy it?" he asked, when he felt he could trust his voice again: not quite true. It was still raspy, but not weak.

Kaiba raised his eyebrows, which was actually more of an acknowledgement than he had expected.

"Do I enjoy what?"

"Fighting. And, the rest." Jounouchi made a vague gesture.

"Sex?"

"Yeah." With a sigh, he forced himself onto his feet, and refrained, regretfully, from leaning against the wall again as soon as he was standing. He unnecessarily dusted off his clothes (every single room in Kaiba's mansion was creepily clean), and looked up. "Well?"

The raised eyebrows were still the most expressive part on Kaiba's face, and Jounouchi watched as they were slowly pulled back down, leaving Kaiba's face completely blank.

"I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it," he answered.

Jounouchi blinked, taken aback by having a part of the conversation he thought _he_ was going to provide snatched away. Kaiba saying it gave it a whole different meaning. Obviously.

"Oh." He tried to think of something to say; thinking about it, it wasn't really much of an answer, not one anyone but the concerned person couldn't have given him just as well. "Right."

"Are you giving up then?" Kaiba asked, and the taunt in his voice was so faint that hadn't he known him as well as he did by now, Jounouchi probably wouldn't have noticed.

He sighed. On the long run, dealing with Kaiba was good for learning self-control.

"You win, okay? You don't have to knock me unconscious for it to count."

Kaiba said nothing; Jounouchi thought that he looked disappointed.

"I'm hungry," he added hopefully.

Kaiba turned away at that: utter contempt, probably, for someone who actually needed to _eat_.

"You know where the kitchen is," he said.

Jounouchi sighed again and nodded. This was just as much hospitality as one could reasonably expect from Seto Kaiba.

* * *

_AN: Comment? I like comments!_


	8. Letzter Atem

_100 words; Dark Magician during the ceremonial duel._

* * *

Letzter Atem

* * *

As determined as the look in them is, the boy's eyes are still soft.

This is the adversary he must defeat; the last and most powerful one.

This is the one who was closest to His heart, first in His thoughts, even in this incomplete replay of His memory, in which He remembered _their_ bound - but not its origin. This is the one who made Him succeed where they all failed three thousand years ago.

He bows his head to this ancient ally; to allow Atemu to continue to live, he will defeat him now, after the gods have failed.


	9. Creampuffs

_Yami Bakura/Ryou Bakura/Malik, dialogue only, crack._

* * *

Creampuffs

* * *

"How many of these stupid creampuffs can you eat in one day?"

"Uhm... there's only three more left?"

"Thank Ra."

"I thought you can't taste what I eat when I'm in control."

"I can't. But I can hear your sickening thoughts of goofy happiness."

"You don't want me to be happy?"

"Don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answer to."

"..."

"Host!"

"Hm? Sorry, I spaced out."

"I'm in your head, you fool. I know what's going on inside you when you 'space out'."

"Right..."

"You're thinking of _him_ again."

"Sorry. I didn't think you'd mind..."

"He's arrogant enough as it is! I don't need to have images like that in my head when he's not here in top of all!"

"He doesn't know."

_"__I_ know. It's bad enough.

...  
I swear, you weren't that perverted before you met him."

"What? He _would_ look good covered in – "

"Stop. Thinking. Of him. Or at least, think of him with clothes on."

"I can't just stop thinking of something when I'm told to! It's like when someone tells you not to think of a pink elephant, and then you have to!_  
Yami_! That's disgusting!"

"_You_ were the one talking about elephants... Now you see what it is it like to get stupid images pushed into your head!"

"Excuse me, I was just thinking of a naked Malik with no elephants s... anywhere. Near. I'd think you'd like that!"

"It's not that I don't _like_ it. But since you're not pushing hot pictures of me into his head when I'm not there, you're clearly giving him an unfair advantage.  
Mm, that's better."

"Narcissist."

"You're one to talk. This is also your body, after all."

"I wouldn't be able to bend it like that."

"Heh. You could learn..."

"...  
Why do you have to talk about it as if it was some kind of a competition anyway? We're dating, not trying to come up with plans to kill each other."

"Speak for yourself."

"You'd have had more than enough occasions, if that's what you wanted."

"The scars won't be legible anymore if his corpse begins to rot..."

"_Ew..._"

"... I'm just trying to find a good way to get to read them in peace."

"Even _I_ almost know those scars by heart by now, and I can't even read them."

"That's because he does fall asleep beside you and doesn't cover his back when you're in control..."

"He does that? I didn't know."

"See, you're as naive as ever."

"You're not jealous, are you? You can't really blame him for not trusting you completely."

"I'm not jealous. I'm just clearing up a misunderstanding."

"... you're not _really_ just trying to get to figure out his scars?"

"Would I tell you?"

"Yami..."

"Eat you creampuffs and leave my plots alone."


	10. Guilt

_Malik/Rishid, 200 words.  
_

* * *

Guilt

* * *

His green eyes hard as stone, his face immutable like a mask, but Malik could see right trough it, see all desires and hopes and fears, and Rishid let himself be stared at, and submitted when weaker hands trailed over his body. He discarded all previous rules, obeyed every command, knee down, suck me, lie down, don't move, kiss me, fetch this, win, kill. The millennium rod had never even grazed his mind.

Whenever there was the beginning of a hesitation, of doubt, immediately an image appeared in front of his interior eye: he was standing before Malik with a knife in his hand. Decided to kill. And now, in the present, his hands begin to shake whenever he remembers this scene: Malik turns round, eyes full of tears, so fearful, so guilty, so loving and trusting still. _Brother_, he says, and Rishid can still hear the clatter of the steel on the floor, can hear it ring on and on in his ears forever.

_Brother_, Malik says, sincere at least back then, and later he promised, freedom and recognition and love, and Rishid would do anything for these past promises, even if Malik had long decided to break them.


	11. Otherworld

_Set during the last arc, anime-based; Kaiba x Kisara, sort of._

* * *

Otherworld

* * *

The nearest street-lamps were far away, but the fickle night-light of the city filled the air even here, behind the black glass of his tower. His computer screen was shining in a faint cold light.

He was seeing none of it. His open eye was fixed on the orb before him, which was gleaming in its own strong golden light.

He didn't see that either: when he held the orb, the symbol turned towards him, very close to the one open eye, he could see through, beyond.

There, in a strange white mist, he saw the girl. He was ready to deny any of this magic, even the orb which's power had once torn his soul from his body and stolen his brother – but not her. She was connected to his dragons, and they to her. He felt, no, _knew_ this with the same certitude with which he knew mathematic properties to be true.

"Who are you?" he asked in a whisper.

She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came from her lips. She looked shocked, and tried again, but remained silent, and the white mist got in the way, making it impossible for him to read her lips.

She raised her arms, like unfolding wings, and reached out for him – and then she faded.

Kaiba slowly lowered the golden orb and turned back toward the screen: somewhere in the back of his mind, he routinely read through the report in front of him.

He would find her.


	12. Worship

_Thief King Bakura/Yami Malik._

* * *

Worship

* * *

The ring spirit had declared himself as eternal as darkness; this one claimed no such thing, but he was indestructible in a way only a madman could be. Immediately, he had recognised him for what he was – anger, rage, hate incarnate – as someone who knew about these things first-hand, better than the other Malik ever had. Better, he thought, than the ring spirit. Better than anyone else he had met in his short life.

Right away, he knew that he would not want to destroy this one for a long time. Would instead want to watch the hate and the insanity grow until the thief became the one he had met in the future, and whom he would eagerly kill a second time.

And this self-proclaimed king had a body, a _real_ body that was his own, not one his spirit form was wearing for convenience: rough, calloused hands, sharp teeth, dry, hungry lips, nails like claws digging into his body, desperately wanting – he knew, and closed his eyes in bliss – to tear him apart and drink in the darkness he was made of.

But he hated, _hated_ the thief's angry spirits and their revenge cries, hated the dark god he wanted to resurrect, hated more than anything the thief's stubborn silence that remained even when he pressed a knife to his throat – even in his powerless fury, he looked forward to licking and sucking the blood from the wound –, as he demanded that he forsake the god.

It was in vain that he ordered him to forget his divinity and his dead village, told him that they, _he_, needed no god to sink Kemet into darkness! He could make Ra himself bow to him and let the world bust into flames at his command! And the true meaning of the harshly whispered words, as he dug in the knife dangerously deep for emphasis, and the thief's hand treacherously slid up his back, ready to snap his neck, was always: "worship me, me, _me__!"_


	13. Zwischenwelt

_Mana/Amane; __double drabble, originally written as a gift-fic for __Bourei no Hikari._

* * *

Zwischenwelt

* * *

When she first sees her, dancing and turning on herself, she thinks it has to be one of _his_ ghosts, trying to coax her away from her brother. She feels different, acts different, but there are so many of them, countless many, lingering through the corridors of the ring and even his mind, wrapping around him like a cloud so she can never get close again.

But she can't quite resist her call, the pleading and hopeful voice, the flicker of colour none of the other ones have, and the long forgotten feeling of being needed:

_Don't look away! I'm just a memory! I'll fade if you look away!_

xxx

"Leave them be," Mana says, while caressing through her long black hair, which she loves. "Don't become angry like _them_!" And quieter: "It will not last..."

One day the prince will succeed, Mana is positive about that, and the ring will be gone, and with it the rest of the first bearer that remains in it.

If _she_ can place the two of them above her hate for the thief, Amane decides as she leans forward to capture the other girl's lips, then so will she.


	14. Mercy

_Okay, I lied, this one is over 500 words long, but not by much; AE-arc, manga-based, Akunadin and Bakurae centred gen.  
_

_

* * *

  
_

Mercy

* * *

_Domino museum; night before the start of the game; two days, at most, before the end of the world._

-Pale fingers were gliding over the body of the mummy in wonder. There was a light twitch, as the owner of the body these fingers were attached to automatically recoiled at that contact, before curiosity more than a foreign influence made him ignore the slight disgust.

"Who?" a voice whispered faintly.-

Laughter resonates in his head in answer, before another voice answers, only in his mind, silent and deafening.

_You linger too much on details, landlord. It doesn't matter anymore._

The owner of the first voice, owner of the body – Ryou Bakura, he remembers that – frowns at this; the voice is always dark and malicious, but he has still managed to recognise some nuances in its tone, and he doesn't like this one.

"Will you destroy it?" he asks, disapproving, son of an archaeologist, and full of respect for all beliefs about survival after death.

Laughter, again, nastier than before, and oddly, more human.

_It would please him too much if I did..._

The boy stops looking at the body before him; there is something in the tone that he has met a few times before but can't quite place, that makes him want to reach out to the voice and know what it is, an eternal spirit, or someone who has been alive like him in the past, and to believe in the latter –

But before his exhausted mind can form any of these thoughts to words, light spreads from the ring and, for the hundredth time since he has received the present, tears dark holes into his memory.

-He woke up in his bed, early in the morning. For him, this story was over.-

* * *

_Egypt, about 1000 year before J.C.__  
Domino museum, five hours after the start of the game._

He had prayed for death. He would have given so much for not having to be the one to perform the ritual, for not having to be the one to face the dark god and use the eye to shield himself – and even more for not having to be the one to return.

But death had refused to take him.

And despite of his fear, he hoped for death when this sole survivor of Kura Eruna appeared on his doorstep. And when he revealed who he was, and because he had passed all of the pharaoh's guards undetected, he believed that it was fate.

But the thief refused to kill him; the thief saw the fear in his eyes, and he laughed at him for believing he would be content which such a poor revenge. Akunadin could hear the voice of the dark god in his laughter, but then, it was too late.

"It would be easy to kill you..." the thief hissed at him, triumphantly standing above him, and increasing the pressure on his chest for emphasis; and, cowardly, he wished he would pass out before it was over. "But I won't..." He clenched his hands to fists. "I will make you a servant of the one who will destroy you, and your son, and all you ever loved..."

When the darkness obliterated his very soul, Akunadin screamed like never before; but his voice died next to the loud, inhuman laughter that was erupting from the survivor's mouth...

And could he have still pleaded for anything at all, with his spirit shattered and only the vestiges of its darkest parts left, could he have had one last wish before being destroyed, it would have been to be given no mercy. Like the traitor he was, he should receive no sepulchre, for his soul to vanish into eternal darkness, for his body not to be preserved through millennia...


	15. Dormant

_Mahado/Malik, drabble, ____p_ost-AE, Alterate Timeline.  
_If you want you can find the original, French version of this through my site (link is on the profil); for some reason I ended up liking this pairing enough to write a fifteen thousand words long fic for it later. XD_

* * *

Dormant

* * *

He came to see, only once, those whose responsibility it was to preserve the memory of their king; to see Isis again, and to talk to the one who had the honour to be the Guardian.

He did not come down into the secret undergrounds to gently retrace those sacred scars, to lose himself in those violet eyes which were gleaming with a beginning of madness, to muffle down a reproach that was silent against his lips...

He came to find the assurance of a future, to instead find, here, a promise of revenge, and be without force to blame.


	16. Haunted House

_Double drabble; Jounouchi calls the regular Ryou Bakura "Bakura"._

* * *

Haunted House

* * *

The house itself creaks like it's about to fall over, their attackers are right in uncanny valley, human-shaped and distorted and silent until the chilling, ultimate shriek, and then there are his allies.

Jounouchi isn't sure who's worse to be stuck in an extremely hostile haunted house with: Bakura, who stares at their ethereal opponents with unconcealed fascination and calls forth monsters from his deck that look no less creepy than the ones they're fighting, and whom he has to keep a careful eye on just in case the _other_ one emerges and decides that he isn't on their side after all; or Kaiba, who's perfectly happy to pulverise the creatures that attack them and has no problem accepting that his own monsters come to life without the need of any noticeable technology, yet keeps mumbling about cheap special effects and how he can do – and has done – better.

Still, Bakura's deck seems particularly well suited for this kind of fight, Jounouchi feels that it's the thought of Kaiba seeing it that keeps himself from rolling into a ball in a corner and closing his eyes (because _haunted house_, of all things!) and all in all, he's glad they're here.

* * *

_AN: Are there any Jounouchi x Kaiba x Ryou/Yami Bakura three(or is it four?)some fics in which they fight evil ghosts? Because there totally should be! XD  
__All comments are appreciated!_


	17. Of Knights and Dragons

_Over 500 words again. Mokuba/Kisara, in a sense, except that it's really not a pairing fic.  
Nii-sama means big brother, and is what Mokuba calls Seto._

* * *

Of Knights and Dragons

* * *

Mokuba approached the window, and looked up to the sky. Still nothing. It didn't worry him. He would see her, eventually. She always told odd stories about magic, and about having been a dragon once. Mokuba wasn't quite sure if he should believe her: she also thought that the automatic blinds, and the radio and the television were magical; but he liked to think she really _was_ a dragon.

And if he waited and looked often enough, he would eventually see her: it was just difficult, because it was a dark night – and because the dragon would be blue as the sky.

Two days before, he had been a knight, and killed the other, evil knights that came to slay the kingdom's only dragon; and he'd rescued a damsel in distress, who also happened to be the dragon, and married her, and the king, her father, had given him half of his kingdom (Seto had gotten the other half).

This night, however, Mokuba was an astronaut, and he wasn't sure whether she'd be here.

"Mokuba!"

He angrily chewed his lower lip when he heard her voice. He had missed the dragon, again, he'd been distracted. But there would be other chances, he told himself.

He turned round, and sighed when he saw her. He was glad she had showed up, but this time it looked she wasn't even making an effort.

"Put on a helmet. Or you'll get asphyxiated," he told her partly because it was true, and partly because he knew what the word was supposed to sound like, and yet hadn't pronounced it right last time he tried.

"Oh..." She looked at the attire he was wearing, attentively. This was one thing he really liked about her: she paid a lot more attention to the important things than most grown ups (he had no idea how old she was; but she was definitely older than his brother, and that made her a grown-up, as far as he was concerned). "I'm sorry. I'm not used to this."

Then she was wearing an outfit similar to his. In blue, of course. Mokuba frowned.

"Where's _Nii-sama_?" he asked.

"He's not here," Kisara answered, and was looking a bit guilty. "Do you think we can manage without him for a while?"

Mokuba thought about this. He used to sometimes imagine stories in which he was alone, in the orphanage, sometimes even before. But then, Seto had always been there to play with him for real.

"He said he'd be here later," he said. "He said he'd sneak in when he's finished with his homework."

"He will be."

"I should wait," he murmured.

The astronaut attire vanished, together with the spaceship that had slowly appeared around them. He was a bit too old for that kind of games anyway. I was her fault, he suspected, at least a little. If Seto was here, they'd play chess and duel monsters. He had a few cards Seto hadn't seen yet: he sometimes got money to buy whatever he wanted, though he only very rarely had the occasion to spend it: it wasn't much for the son of Gozaburo Kaiba, but it was a fortune for the orphan he was.

"No." Kisara shook her head resolutely. The spaceship reappeared palely as she spoke. Mokuba was aware that this wasn't quite natural: but he'd never seen a reason to really think about it. Gentler, pleading almost, she added: "Time will flow faster if we do something..."

He looked up at her unsurely; would his brother really not mind? He was given books and told to study, though no-one ever really checked; and he tried to spend whole days and nights reading, understanding and memorising – or at least sitting over them – like Seto did, but he got tired, and Kisara kept distracting him with her tales about dragons.

"All right," he murmured, not fully happy yet; it wasn't fair that he got a dragon-bride and his brother didn't even meet her. "Can't you go look after _him_?" he asked hopefully.

She cast him a sad glance, and suddenly looked annoyingly adult:

"That's what I'm trying to do..."


	18. Grieving

_Post-series, one-sided Anzu/Atemu and Yuugi/Anzu; you can read it as Yuugi/Atemu as well. Slightly over 500 words again (well, just forget that rule).  
_

* * *

Grieving

* * *

At first, he had thought that Anzu was only trying to find something of Atemu in him.

It wasn't really fair, of course, because she wouldn't do such a thing to him; but it wasn't like he was suspecting her of some underhand scheming; and it wasn't like he too, was not, to some extend, also talking to her about him because he wanted someone who had been close to his other self.

Of course, the others too, had liked, loved Atemu: but not with this irrational, a little egoistic kind of love that wouldn't listen to reason. Not like Anzu.

And none of his other friends missed him as much; all of them – and he as well – had understood that he needed to go: Anzu too, had understood, but it had not stopped her from wishing, with all her might, that she could hold him back him; had not even stopped her from running after him when he had been about to leave.

He would have felt guilty for spending hours with her, sharing all the memories of Atemu that no-ones else knew about, if he didn't know that she liked hearing him talk; if he didn't know that he, himself, though his crush on her had never faded completely, felt no bitterness at all when she spoke of him in return, clearly still in love, at least a little.

The most unbearable part of his grief, the one he had believed he would not overcome, had never been Atemu's absence: his sudden solitude, the unaccustomed silence in his mind, had been so painful, during the first weeks, that he could almost feel it physically. But time, the presence of his friends, and his certitude that Atemu had reached what he had been searching for had helped him.

What tore at him were all the things he had shared only with Atemu, their common memories of the spirit's brief second life, conversations and gestures and in-jokes, everything trivial and silly that was suddenly cut off from the world, and condemned to live on only in his mind – and it felt so insufficient!

But reviving it all in speaking to Anzu helped, speaking to Anzu who was still in love and was willing to listen, out of purely egoistical reasons as well as because she was his friend. Every time they talked, the weight on his heart would lighten a little: it would never vanish completely, but it would no longer hold him down.

"I never really knew him, did I?" Anzu eventually mused one day, when they were sitting on his bed together, fingers gently interlaced. "Not like you did."

He shrugged weakly.

"He lived inside my mind. No-one knew him like that, it was unique. But I'll never know him the way his friend back in Egypt did either. It's..." He trailed off, searching for words, tried to explain: "It doesn't matter. And I know he cared for you a lot."

He quickly looked away when he felt himself blush. Anzu pressed his hand. He glanced back up at her, at the serious, thoughtfully look in her eyes, and thought then that this was over now, that using her past – fading? – teenage love any longer would be unkind and that if he shared his memories with her, from now on it would have to be like with the others; but she smiled kindly at him, and he felt no grief.

* * *

_Comments are always greatly appreciated. ;)_


	19. Wordless

_An older one; Shizuka/Kisara. "Onii-chan" is an affectionate way of saying "big brother".  
_

* * *

Wordless

* * *

"Don't worry," the girl – _Shizuka_, she whispers to herself, and still doesn't get it right – says while she rearranges the sheets of her bed, as Kisara has insisted on being the one to sleep on the mattress on the floor; and she smiles at her, brightly and confidently, as if there was no evil in the world. "Yuugi and Onii-chan will find a way to send you back; or if you want, they'll convince Kaiba-kun to help you, and he'll find a way to give you an official identity."

Kisara doesn't understand, but she already knows that Yuugi is the one who looks so much like the pharaoh, that "onii-chan" is the girl's brother who has brought her here (and it's the first word she memorised, because of the way the girl's eyes lit up whenever she speaks it), and that Kaiba-kun is what she calls the priest, whom she has not met but seen on pictures many times since her arrival.

"And even if it doesn't work," the girl adds, sitting up on her bed, still smiling as she searches her eyes, but there's something timid in her smile now, and a light flush colouring her cheeks. "You can still stay here..."

Kisara looks at her for a long moment, and then smiles back softly to show her agreement, and promises herself that she will not abandon her.


	20. Reconciling Divergences

_Another older one, Malik & Jounouchi (I thought of the ship when writing this, but there's no clear indication as to whether it's just a friendship or not), post BC. Slightly silly, I'm afraid._

* * *

Reconciling Divergences

* * *

"I'm a vegetarian!" Malik snapped when Jounouchi tried to push one of the hotdogs he had finally gotten after standing in line for twenty minutes into his hand.

Jounouchi blinked, briefly wondered if that meant he could eat _both_ hotdogs, but his astonishment was stronger: he had been aware of that, but somehow had failed to make the connection until now:

"You mean you've _never_ eaten a hotdog?"

"I lived in ancient underground tunnels!" And, as this didn't seem to explain anything to Jounouchi: "And no, we didn't have hotdogs."

"But... what did you do _after_ you came out?" Jounouchi asked, thinking that if he came back from such an imprisonment, the first and for quite a while _only_ thing he'd do was to eat lots of delicious and unhealthy food.

"Well... I created an international criminal organisation, tried to kill you and your friends, and had a good try at taking over the world." He paused. "Also, I stole a motorbike."

"Uhm..." Jounouchi pondered over these unpleasant memories that ought to make him remain at least a little wary of the ancient tomb keeper, rather than getting him food and taking him to the cinema and showing him around in the modern world. "So... you don't want it?"

He held up the hotdog; Malik resolutely shook his head.

And so the past could be forgotten.

* * *


	21. Substance

_Double drabble, Kaiba brothers centric._

* * *

Substance

* * *

It's an act, of course; a game of play-pretend.

It's only after he describes it as such that Mokuba, after _saying_ that he agrees, wide-eyed and frightened, actually does. He's better at it than Seto, as a matter of fact, more experienced in playing and lying for the sheer joy of it.

And Seto can breathe and concentrate on keeping up the act from his side, convincing enough for his suspicious step-father.

He's not used to doing things half-way.

They have few occasions for time-outs, for dropping the act; the game is on twenty-four hours a day, and Seto is too stubborn to accept that this could be more than he can bear; that he could be taken over by his own fiction. There's got to be a core to him, to his bound with his brother, that can't be destroyed so easily? Reality can't be shifted like this, by the illusions created by everyday lies! Surely, they could drop the masks and return to the reality of who they are as soon as they're safe, as soon as they want...

The lie can't install itself so deeply within his heart that nothing short of shattering it will extract it...?


	22. Magical Girl

_Drabble, re-write of a French fic__ (which I wrote before "Zwischenwelt", I only now realised they're a bit similar...).  
Ryou and Mana (Ryou/Mana?) _

* * *

Magical Girl

* * *

There are, deep inside the grey corridors of the ring, echoes of the spirits of the past hosts.

No voice among the lingering whisper has more strength than hers; something akin to fragments of sadness and joy flies so far as to reach even his room. He forgets the present over searching for remains of the dead girl's smile, for her constantly moving silhouette, her dance-like steps, her touch of colour in the greyness. He calls her name, magic.

She answers with a soft voice that is like laughter. The walls murmur ancient spells that would help him to fight.

* * *


	23. Adieu

_Another approximate translation (the result is a drabble again, by pure chance this time)._

_Mahado and Isis, memory arc._

* * *

Adieu

* * *

Between them, there is no need for words.

Facing each other, and looking into each other's eyes without trying to read in them, they stand, for the last time, in this court where they once met. It's one of the nicest days of the year.

She will not bid him farewell.

Never before has her task seemed so hard to her. Never before has she so wished to be freed of it, to be allowed to see the future as a space still large and secret.

They don't move. She makes no step in his direction, nor he in hers.


	24. Love You Like the Moonlight But

_Kaiba/Kisara._

* * *

Love You Like the Moonlight But Dream of the Sun

* * *

He gives her a garden – a park – with rich vegetation and pools of turquoise-blue water and flowers that bloom 'til late autumn and by early spring. It's there that he kisses her for the first time, only after the place is legally hers and she has claimed, in her quiet wandering, every stone, every leaf as hers: he cannot take without giving first, she knows this much already, and she accepts it, though it pains her that he seems to think the love he can give in exchange for hers not enough...

If he loves her, that is; she knows he loves the dragons just by the way he speaks of them, with pride, amazement, joy, and almost pain. But while the dragons are part of her, an embodiment of her very soul, they exist only when she is unconscious and vanish as she wakes. And she cannot help but be jealous, of this part of herself: she wants him to love all of her; she wants him to love the part of her that she is conscious of more than the other, and she is not sure that he does. She's not sure, even as they exchange soft butterfly kisses, sitting together on the rocks above a pool, silver-white fishes playing at their feet while a soft wind carries the scent of magnolias to them, even though his lips are so soft and his hands, on her shoulder and her cheek, so careful, no, she's not sure that he loves her like...

Like _she_ loves _him_, if she loves him, that is. And she does, of course, and would never have needed a single present from his hands, nor, maybe, a word from his lips or a kind gesture; she would have adored him even if he had never given her a single look like this one, his eyes so full of quiet wonder and burning desire when he walks next to her, through one of the narrow lanes of their garden, beneath the dark summer-trees, birdsongs and the gentle buzz of bees filling the air. But she is unfaithful like he is, for maybe more than that she loves the one he was and does not remember, and whose heritage he refuses to claim.

She knew the high-priest so little, only that he would lay down his life for a stranger, and that he was kind and noble and worth saving at any cost!... But she knows him now, from seeing his remerged soul; knows what the feel of her fingers interlaced with his, as they stand side by side, would have been if he had calluses from typing and not from swordplay; knows what he would have been had he had no father to guide him but a rival to kill, no pharaoh to serve but a brother to protect; knows every inflections of his voice had it spoken in a different tongue; knows all his gestures from a different life, and is all that nothing? It is easy to see him in Seto Kaiba, as easy as it seems for him to lie down in the soft grass next to her, under a low, golden sun – and his voice goes soft, and his eyes lit up – and look at her blue eyes and colourless hair and her frail body and see the dragon.


	25. Dreams of Silver

_Ryou x Thief King__ (or almost); double drabble._

* * *

Dreams of Silver

* * *

The host is sleeping, deep and peaceful, a learned behaviour; his chest is raising and falling, and he emits a faint nasal sound, not quite a snore, one breath out of two.

The king, sitting next to him in the muddy sand kept cool by the large rook behind them and the closeness of water watches him quietly. When he first appeared, he had wanted to kill him, but the spirit itself had said, before being torn away, that the boy must survive and be returned to the future, or they would die.

But now that fear and hate are gone, he wants to touch him still, learn the strength of the neck he can't snap, caress the impossibly tender skin of his foot soles, ... But the host might shy away, and he needs to keep him close to protect him; and he needs the sleep, if they are to wander on.

He settles for running his hands through his hair, carefully, never tugging: in the right light it is like threads of silver, and he imagines weaving it to daggers and swords and necklaces to choke kings with, and magic artefacts, and whispers soft spells in his ear.

* * *

_(Comments are always loved!)_


	26. Blessed

_High Priest Seto/Mahado; gift!fic for Diluted Thoughts._

_

* * *

_Blessed

_

* * *

_The High Priest stops him outside of the throne room, strides past him, turns, and halts, forcing him to retreat against the wall. His eyes are still wide and angry and, from this close up, Mahado feels the strength of their glare almost physically; his lips are a thin, hard line, no longer curled in disdain. Mahado stands were he is, under the passage's archway, long afternoon shadow spread out behind him, lets the other man's silent anger sweep over him, and he feels that too, a shiver running down his back, and maybe there's a little real magic in it. Seto's hold on the millennium rod is sure and relaxed as on a deadly weapon.

They find themselves like this very often, after their daily disagreements, about taxes or war, a criminal's sentence or the location of the king's tomb; and tonight, Mahado knows, Seto's body will be hard, unyielding, and demanding under him; on days like this, when they have all but yelled at each other in front of the throne, Seto touches him like he can map out his mind by the curve of his neck, the lines of his chest, the very sound of his moans when they are closest.

"He is wrong," is what Seto says, coldly; a low swipe, to attack their king for siding with him instead of himself, but Seto can be ruthless, he always knew that. He is prepared for no less.

Privately, he wonders: would he be the same, would he strive with the some force to be always at his best, as he owes his king, if it were not for Seto and their eternal opposition? Is this then, perhaps, a blessing? He won't betray his heart enough to wish for it to be otherwise, he knows that much.

"Time will tell," he replies calmly.

Seto's eyes narrow. There will be angry silence between them, later, when they're alone, and harsh words when they are not; for now, Seto turns away as briskly as he has come, and walks off through the court. Mahado looks after him until he is out of sight.


	27. Precious as Gems and Ashes

_Thief King/Ryou. Written for the livejournal community "ygodrabble". AT set inside the memory world; using manga canon in that Ryou's "white mage" character is referenced, Ryou makes the endgame model, and Ryou is rather found of his ring and no-one knows why; I feel indebted to expletive deleted whenever I write memory world BakuBaku, so she ought to be mentioned here._

* * *

Precious as Gems and Ashes

* * *

The host is appalled as he stands before the stone. Bakura has never seen him like that before: the host is a cheerful creature. He admires the gems and silver cups and figurines he brings him with wakeful interest and an exited smile that pushes him to bring, to share more; he stares at his angry ghosts with unrestrained wonder and asks about their names and stories, but shrugs it off when he can't remember. He touches the very walls of the huts and the earth beneath their feet with awe, surprised by how very real they are, a magician surprised by the effects of his own magic. Bakura thought he might love this too: the darkness, rumbling deep beneath the earth and pushing up, the power shivering under their feet, the filaments of magic...

But the stone slab disturbs the host. He looks at the spots where the millennium items will be placed with sadness.

"I don't –" The host breaks off, and turns to look at him. "If you know it was his doing, why would you _help_him now?"

"Help him?" He speaks the words with confusion; he is offering no help, and the god waiting beneath the earth is not a person but a dark force that will sweep over the land.

"You're freeing him. You're letting him destroy – That's what he _wants_."

Bakura laughs at that. Because – _Isn't that what_ you're _doing, white mage?_But he doesn't say it; the one beyond the sky has warned him not to shake the careful, contradictory thinking patterns the host has created for himself under his guidance.

He needs to answer though; the host is his link to the world beyond and to the pharaoh; he can't bear being separated from him through incomprehension. He takes the host's hand, and the host lets himself be drawn closer, as almost always; Bakura too has been observed and touched with wonder, and he has not known this kind of intimacy before; there's danger in that, he knows, the pleasure high as fire and murder.

"I do not help him," he says now. "I stole him. He is mine, to do my bidding." The host looks confused, and Bakura thinks of the marionettes the host has told him about, tiny puppets on strings, like the ones some priests own; he moves his hand like the host did, silly play of the fingers in the air. "Like you." He gestures at the sky. "Like him."

The host shakes his head, unconvinced, but he stares at his hand and doesn't answer. He doesn't like to talk directly of the _other_: it makes the carefully built paper houses in his mind quiver, Bakura knows that. The day before, he washed the blood off his hands and healed his gashes without a word.

Bakura draws him close, and the host lets him, pulling their bodies flush together, the white robe's soft material caressing his naked skin. Bakura wants to stand like that when the end comes, when he has spilled the blood over the alter – and it seems right the ring has once pierced the host's flesh and bathed in his blood as well –, when the screams fill the air louder than his ghosts and Ra's sun dies; he wants to feel the warmth of the host's body and, like now, his lips against his, searching and soft almost like regret, before the darkness comes and turns them to sand.


End file.
